Background to this inspection
Updated
9 July 2019
The Inspection:
We carried out this inspection under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (the Act) as part of our regulatory functions. This inspection was planned to check whether the provider was meeting the legal requirements and regulations associated with the Act, to look at the overall quality of the service, and to provide a rating for the service under the Care Act 2014.
Inspection team:
One inspector conducted the inspection.
Service and service type:
SentriCare East Mids Ltd is a home care agency that supports people who live in their own homes. Not everyone using the service receives the regulated activity of personal care. CQC only inspects the service being received by people provided with ‘personal care’; help with tasks related to personal hygiene and eating. Where they do we also take into account any wider social care provided.
The service had a manager who was registered with the CQC. A registered manager is a person who, with the provider, is legally responsible for how the service is run and for the quality and safety of the care provided.
Notice of inspection:
This inspection was announced two working days in advance. This is because we wanted to make sure that the management was available to assist us to carry out the inspection.
What we did when preparing for and carrying out this inspection:
Before the inspection, we asked the provider to complete a Provider Information Return (PIR). This is a form that asks the provider to give some key information about the service, what the service does well and improvements they plan to make. We reviewed information we held about the service such as notifications. These are events which happened in the service that the provider is required to tell us about. We sought feedback from the local authority who monitored the care and support people received and Healthwatch Derby, the local consumer champion for people using adult social care services. We used all this information to plan our inspection.
During the inspection, we spoke with two people provided with personal care and four relatives. We also spoke with the registered manager, the provider and two care staff.
We reviewed a range of records. This included accident and incident records, three people's care records and medicine records. We also looked at three staff recruitment files.
We asked the registered manager to email further information to us, so that we could judge whether a quality service was provided to people.
Updated
9 July 2019
About the service:
The office of the service is in central Derby.
The service provides personal care to people living in their own homes who need some support in living their lives.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk
People and relatives said that safe personal care had been provided to meet people’s needs.
Staff recruitment checks were carried out to protect people from receiving personal care from unsuitable staff.
Risk assessments were in place to protect people from risks to their health and welfare, though some needed more detail to specify the exact risk and how to deal with this.
Staff had been trained in safeguarding (protecting people from abuse). Staff members understood their responsibilities to safeguard people and to contact relevant agencies if needed.
The registered manager was aware that certain incidents, if they occurred, needed to be reported to us, as legally required.
Staff had largely received training to ensure they had skills and knowledge to meet people's needs. Further specialist training was needed on people’s health conditions.
Staff members understood their responsibilities under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) to allow, as much as possible, people to have effective choices about how they lived their lives. Staff were aware to ask people's consent when they provided personal care. Capacity assessments were not in place to determine how best to support people who did not have capacity to decide aspects of their lifestyles, though this did not have any impact on the service people received.
People and relatives told us that staff were very friendly, caring and kind. They said they had been involved in making decisions about how and what personal care was needed to meet personal care needs.
Care plans contained personalised information about people’s preferences and likes and dislikes, though there was little information about people’s history, which would help staff to ensure that people’s needs were fully met.
Staffing levels were sufficient to always provide people with the care they needed.
People and relatives were confident that any concerns they had would be properly followed up. They were satisfied with how the service was run. Staff members said they had been supported in their work by the registered manager.
Audits to measure that a quality service had been provided to people were carried out.
Staff worked in partnership with relatives so that people got the support they required from other agencies.
Rating at last inspection:
The service was rated Good at the last inspection. Our last report was published for the inspection of August 2016.
Why we inspected.
This inspection was part of our scheduled plan of visiting services to check the safety and quality of care people received.
Follow up.
We will continue to monitor the service to ensure that people received safe, high quality care. Further inspections will be planned for future dates.
For more details, please see the full report which is on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk